By Byron Kaye and Toby Sterling

SYDNEY/AMSTERDAM: After decades checkingtheir rearview mirrors for the threat from rail and airtransport truckers around the world are facing their latestrival head-on: driverless trucks.

As companies from Toyota Motor Corp to Googleparent Alphabet Inc race to develop driverlesstechnology trucking companies are seeing the potential to cutcosts by nearly half and improve safety.

Already in Australia the world's most truck-dependentnation mining giants such as Rio Tinto are usingremote controlled lorries to shift iron ore around massivemining pits.

Now the country's road transport companies are modernisingfleets to ensure that when their industry goes autonomous asearly as the end of the decade they are ready.

"I don't see this as disruptive necessarily as much as anatural evolution" said Sarah Jones head of road transportcompliance at Toll Holdings Australia's biggest truckingcompany.

Toll owned by Japan Post Holdings Co Ltd hasalready kitted out many of its 3000 vehicles withsemi-autonomous gadgetry like lane-change sensors and cruisecontrol.

It will join other firms in April to watch a driverlesstruck trial in the Netherlands which wants autonomous roadtrains sending cargo from Rotterdam Europe's biggest port

throughout the continent by 2019.

NEW ROAD RULES

The Netherlands is not alone. Singapore plans to trialautonomous trucks while Canadian oil producer Suncor Energy Inchas ordered a fleet of trucks equipped to go driverless.

The U.S. state of Nevada last year approved Mercedes-Benzmaker Daimler AG to undertake trials of itsself-driving trucks on public roads following tests in Germany.

Much early work is focused on "platooning" where trucks cutwind resistance and thus fuel costs by travelling in closeprocession. A manned front vehicle controls gas and brakes forthe others using radio signals.

Testing of the other benefits expected from going fullydriverless - savings from removing driver compartments airconditioning and rest stops - will come later.

The cuts in wage and fuel bills could be massive. The U.S.road freight business alone was worth $700 billion in 2014according to the American Trucking Associations.

"It's a huge productivity benefit and that's before youstart looking at the impacts on road safety" said GerardWaldron managing director of the Australian Road ResearchBoard which is conducting autonomous vehicle testing andestimates cost savings of 40 percent.

"You would also come to a conclusion that since 90 percentof crashes and injuries are the result of human error you couldput a fair dent in that sort of outcome as well."

Although self-driven freight depends on making theinter-vehicle sensors and satellite positioning failsafe thebiggest hold-up is expected to come from regulators.

Coordinating rules between different jurisdictions whetherbetween U.S. or Australian states or European countries is key.

Freight companies must also wait for resolution onlong-standing legal quirks like a law in Australia requiring atleast one hand on the steering wheel and a European lawrequiring trucks to travel at least three seconds apart - toolong to make platooning effective.

Regulations on liability and roaduser safety will also berequired to clarify where responsibility lies if things gowrong.

"It's not the technology that will set the roadmap it's thelegislation and the standardisation of protocols" saidLars-Gunnar Hedström head of Systems Development at Swedishtruckmaker Scania AB which is involved in theNetherlands trial.

END OF THE ROAD FOR TRUCKERS?

Fears that thousands of drivers will lose their jobs havebeen raised but the industry has downplayed such concerns asmany countries struggle to fill trucking jobs.

In Australia freight demand is forecast to jump 80 percentby 2031 while the number of drivers is expected to stallaccording industry estimates.

"The whole time I've been trucking the railways have beengoing to replace me but that hasn't happened" said KelvinBaxter a former driver who employs 50 at his grain

transportation business in Australia's east.

"At the moment our concerns are finding enough drivers."

Reuters